science

It’s a scientific fact that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is moving fast towards its neighboring galaxy, the Andromeda. As per calculations made by famous scientists, in 3 billion years from today the galaxies will start merging and it would take 2.5 billion years to complete the process of merging. Even though scientists believe that earth will be safe during the galactic merging, there is always a question about the manner these galaxies will merge. The worse fate of earth would be, if it lies in the path of the Andromeda’s core. The cores of each galaxies holds a super massive black hole & the merging process won’t stop until these cores have joined together to form a single core for the new galaxy. Today, nearly all scholars believe that mankind need not worry about this event, because by then mankind would have invented many avenues to cheat natural disasters. They might have discovered habitable planets in nearby star systems & might have invented efficient ways to travel vast distances of universe. They did, in the longest stretch of mankind; they invented ways to reach Alpha-Century (Nearby Star). This civilization witnessed the start of galactic merger. However, in an unfortunate event in which few 1000 asteroids showered on earth, the civilization was helpless. The mankind perished in one night. After half a million years later the intelligent life spawned earth’s surface again. The cycle of mankind’s discovery repeated itself again. They discovered their new god & counted years from the day their god made them. They called it After Genesis.

Counting from AG (After Genesis), humanity has been thriving on the earth for 1600 years. With a controlled population of 1.5 Billion, the society has been perfect in every sense. They found ways to travel to moon and nearby planets; they discovered ways to safeguard themselves from asteroids and meteors. But they were not prepared for what was in store for them in coming 10 years. The worst of worse scenario, the galactic core –a black hole was on its way to devour earth; and earth was in the collision course. One man, Dymer Clyme, famous astronomer & historian will journey country to country & far reaches of solar system to decode the prophecies of a million year old society & save earth from its certain death.

Chapter 1 – Diamonds in the sky

Last night of the year 1629 AG: The night sky has never been this delightful. Millions of cities turn off their lights for an hour every night to enjoy the multitude of color & shapes that hangs about in the heavens. “Dad, look eastwards, that’s a new strip of green nebula” shouted an overly excited little girl named Lyzi. “Yes, my dear, it’s quite common for a winter sky to put out new nebulas once in a month” replied the father, Dymer Clyme. Dymer Clyme is a famous historian & astronomer, with atleast 200 bestselling non-fictional books under his portfolio. His latest book – The ancient sky, provoked lot of communities for openly discussing weakness of the existing society. Dymer strongly believes that everyone is drawing a blindfold to the legacies left by previous societies. “How long this sky has been like this, dad?” added Lyzi. “Well, as of today, the sky has been like this since the beginning of mankind but we are not exactly sure when this phenomenon has started. Anyways, enough of stargazing, it’s getting late and you have school tomorrow. Come on, let’s go inside.” In 5 minutes the whole city lit up with restored electricity. After putting Lyzi to sleep Dymer turned on the television and the news channel buzzed on “And in today’s news – What are we thankful of for this decade. Un-deniably, this decade has been quite a happening 10. From astronaut Zletus Kimm’s first foot step on Mars to the ground breaking inventions of Dr. Ulder in parallel space time fabrics, it looks like next decade we can touch the heaven.” and the news went on while Dymer slowly drifted to sleep.

The sky, reflecting colors in every shape and form, surely looked like scattered diamonds spread across a piece of black cloth. Every conceivable color was painted across the night sky, few shifting shapes while others silently stared back at earth. However, amongst these bizarre shapes and colors lied a bright spot, spooling other shapes into it steadily, if stared at it for hours one can compare the bundle of light with a circus master. It felt as if the light controlled the destiny of sky, devouring few shapes and sometimes splitting few to make new nebulas. It was a treat for human kind to watch this spectacular scene over and over again for millions of years.

But time has changed; the final parade of the galactic core merger has begun. The glowing bright light conceals a super massive black hole in it core. Sucking in matter and every form of light, the black hole glows bight from the fictional energy. For an ordinary human being it’s just another heavenly body. But Dymer has been observing it closely. It was 5 am in the morning and Dymer’s phone buzzed with a heavy vibration. After putting his glasses on, he stared at the phone screen – Zletus Kimm….Calling…. Clearing his morning throat Dymer replies cheerfully “Hey old pal, long time”. “You were true, all the while, I saw it with my eyes, and we have to meet as soon as possible.” There was a mutual silence for few seconds and Dymer replied stammering “Oh, oh…yes, ofcourse, but the calculations indicate, it can’t be, okay, okay, can we meet around 9 am at my office”. With the confirmation Dymer haphazardly placed the phone on the side table and ran to the computer. There was one high priority mail from Zletus with subject “Final processed images on Mars mission”. He opened the attachment and stared blankly with mouth wide open.

Looking across the dim-lit, half draw blinds, Murmus focused on a rising Sun and made a clinking sound as she boots-up her vital robotic parts. Her memory chip was not programmed to appreciate the beauty of dawn or to soothe over the jingles of morning breeze. But she was well programmed to service her parts with the first ray of every dawn. She has been doing this for over a decade. Sun light, or sometimes preprogramming, brings all her sensors to life & she proof reads hers daily protocols. Super intelligent yet naïve like a new born baby; Murmus steps out of her 1×1 closet. Her white & slender body glimmering golden in the morning sunlight. “Go’’d Morn’’g” She spoke in her robotic voice. Her owner, an early 30s single mother, was a cheerful woman with a 4 year old daughter. Murmus had the duty of morning ritual to cook breakfast, to pickup clothes for laundry, to prepare the little girl for school, and to pack bags for both mother & daughter. All done, Murmus leaves the house to drop the little girl at school. Murmus was dearly loved by the family.

Fifty miles away Bulbus was walking with his 29 year old master. Bulbus was a high profile robot working with his master at a stock trading center. Bulbus was not capable of doing anything other than complex calculations and pattern recognition. He was strongly built of about 2 meters height & his head was oddly larger than rest of his body, may be because of larger processors. His master was a rich young trader with an attractive vibe. Bulbus interacts with lot of other robots everyday but he is ruthlessly focuses on his needs. His neural system was sharply conditioned by his master to make money at every step of his move.

Bulbus and his master usually take the same route to reach their office. Walking three blocks from their home, they take around 30 minutes to reach their office. But today was different. Five minutes into their walk, Bulbus’s master got an urgent call from his family and he had to leave. He strictly inspected Bulbus navigation protocols and instructed him to go back home. Biding goodbye to his master Bulbus continued his journey back home. Something was eerily odd that day. Bulbus was evolving as a droid from being a robot. Partly because of his adaptive learning skills. Curiously he halted next to a bus stop & focused on a particular stop ‘Primary learning school’. Bulbus checked his batteries – He had 15 hours of charge left. An evolving thought compelled him to visit this primary learning school & check how human beings start learning in this world. In a minute he boarded a bus & travelled 40 minutes to reach the school. Walking towards the school Bulbus stopped suddenly. He has never seen so many young human beings in the same place ever before. Awestruck with the overwhelming sight he walked slowly towards the gate. “Sir, are you here to drop your master? I am sorry but I have never seen you before” Asked the security guard. “Oh! My master is travelling now. Unfortunately he had some family urgencies to tend to. I am here to see how you humans start learning. Thank you!” Bulbus recited & walked into the gate. “SIR! I have to stop you here. You can’t go inside. Unless you are guiding your master to the school. Please step out of the gate.” Bulbus couldn’t comprehend the concept of restriction (Since he has always been freely moving in and out of his office. And never have been to any other organization). He stood there staring at the security guard.

Meanwhile, Murmus checked the little girl’s bag and ensured she had everything for the day. Walking towards the school gate she greeted good morning to the security guard & dropped off the little girl saying “Have a good day. See you in the evening”. Then she noticed this strange odd looking robot standing there. Staring blankly at the security guard. She asked him politely “Are you alright?”. “Actually no. I don’t understand why this human being wont let me go inside the school. All I want is to have a look at the way humans learn” Bulbus replied in a surprised tone. “HaHa. Whats your name?” Murmus asked. “Pardon me! I don’t know you atall. I cant reveal my identity or my model details to a stranger.” “Clearly you haven’t seen much of the world. Have you?” asked Murmus. “You see,I have a specific duty to perform & I do it well. But today I am a bit curious to understand human beings a bit more. I am Bulbus by the way.” Bulbus replied looking down at Murmus. “Well, nice to meet you Bulbus. I am Murmus, a household robot. I must say, I have never seen a curious robot like you. Your master be a smart and humble human being”. “Yes he is. And nice to meet you too Murmus. Do you stay close by? Will it be okay if I can learn about human beings along with you. Well to be honest, being a house hold robot you must be aware of all the social protocols that humans follow.” Bulbus asked in a curious fashion. Giving out a little robotic giggle Murmus replied “and aren’t you a socially awkward robot. Lets see, I guess you are safe enough to spend few hours with.” “Thank you so much. So were are you headed now? You see, I have around 14 hours of battery left, so I propose I must go back to my place by 4 pm evening.” “That sounds about right. I have to pick up little Jane around 4:30pm. So I can leave you at the school bus stop.” There was a sense of excitement in her voice, as for the first time in a decade she is having a real conversation with another robot. Deciding upon what places to visit ,both the ‘now evolving droids’ set off for their day trip to urban chaos.

City Centre – Ticked off, House of Parliament – Ticked off, National Park – Ticked off. Having visited so many social gathering places, Bulbus was overly excited about the life style of human beings. “Such a wonderful city this is. So where next?” Bulbus asked. “Ha Ha. Yes it is. I have to buy some household items. So lets go to the Myran shopping center. That falls on the way to the school and now its 3:30pm.” They reached the shopping center. Looking up at the clouds Bulbus said sadly ” My my looks like its going to rain in an hour. I better find some shelter. My model is not made to be exposed to water. Well, I am suppose to stay inside office all the time” “Its okay. We can go inside the shopping center.” Murmus replied. As the duo entered the shopping place, the proximity alarm tripped off & security guards came running to them. “Wow, is that a Grade-A robot? What is he doing so far away from down town!” “I am sorry, this one can’t get it. He can put us out of business in 5 mins. Haha. Sorry sir you have to wait outside” Bulbus was confused again. Murmus answered to the now gathered crowed “It alright. I am guiding him through a city visit. For now he will wait for me outside & I have 10 minutes of shopping to do.” With that bulbus went outside to wait for her.

After, what felt like a minute or so, Bulbus heard a water drop landing on his metallic head. “Oh Dear”. In few seconds rain was pouring at its best. “Must save all the data! Must find a shelter!” Bulbus shouted and ran around the place like a scattered cat. But all his efforts were in vain. In 30 seconds his system snapped & shut itself down. Bulbus fell to the concrete floor like a cold corpse.

All data erased in 30 seconds – All neural learning erased in 30 seconds – A money vending machine turned in to a pile of metal and wires in 30 seconds. What was remaining in Bulbus was – past 12 hours of temporary memory.

Inside the isolated shopping center Murmus had no clue of the out burst of clouds. After few minutes she came out to a shocking sight. She ran towards grounded Bulbus and checked his vitals. Rain was still pouring. She ran towards the road & stopped a Taxi. She picked up Bulbus & placed him carefully inside the cab speaking loudly ” Cyprus Apartment – Dormathy Road – Lobby A. Please – quick” On the way to her apartment she called her master – Tiffany to explained everything & requested her to pick up Jane on the way home.

She plugged Bulbus to a charging plug & searched internet for re-booting sequence. But handling a Grade-A robot was not a piece of cake. By the time she had quit all her hopes, Tiffany reached home with Jane. “Mom he is so big!” Shouted Jane staring at still resting body of Bulbus. “Did you find out who is his master?” Asked Tiffany. “No” Murmus replied in a sad tone. “Its alright Murmus. Don’t worry. He is a Grade-A robot. Hopefully he will boot himself up. Just give him some time to charge up” Tiffany looked at Murmus and smiled. Murmus pulled her charging plug and sat next to Bulbus – And sat there for the whole night.

Morning dawned. 50 miles across the city, Peter came back to an empty house. And sat down on the floor with palms on his face – He has lost enough.

With a beep Bulbus rebooted & stared at Murmus blankly. Memory wiped clean; what he remembers now is his past few moments with Murmus and he feels good about it. BUT! with another sharp and loud beep he stood up straight – “Must go back to Peter”

“This is the story of me leaving Harvard – on the way to become a famous Physicist & how I became a famous detective instead. I dug into my journal & I am going to share the interesting bits of this transformation. In my academic terms, I was hunting Laplace but ended up in the infinite loop of Fourier.”

Chapter 1

19th October 1946 (Saturday)

The invisible matter

My name is Jeff Davis, a Phd final year quantum physics scholar in Harvard University Department of Physics. I hail from a small town of England near North Cumbria, beautiful little town with the scars of World War II. I am on my way to achieve the sole goal of my life – Become a famous theoretical quantum physicist. But strange events have happened in my life, rather I can say in past 7 days of my life. Events that can only happen in my final year thesis have happened for real. So how does that involve me? Well, putting it in a nice way, now I am a part of it.

My final year term started on 20th day of July 1946. Finally my concurrent theoretical research on existence of dark matter & multi-dimensional exchange of energy in sub-atomic particles is taking shape. If successful I will be the next happiest man after JJ Thompson. My equations prove that an atom is made up of rather more sub-atomic particles than just electrons, protons & neutrons. But I am still stuck in simplifying my awkwardly complex equations. My final year aim is to follow the steps of Albert & formulate a simplified universal equation to describe the sub-atomic physics. Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Plank are few of my role models & off course Albert.

Life was on track until the 12th day of October, 1946. I received a telegram from North Cumbria stating one of my cousins – Henry had suffered a major brain disease and was in the state of paralysis & this happened in one day. Reasons were unknown; a fully healthy man with no apparent reason got his brain dis-functional. I packed my bag & boarded newly launched Pan American Aviation craft. It was Saturday & the aircraft was airborne by 9pm in the evening. It took me 12 hours to reach North Cumbria as I had to take railroad from Bournemouth-Hurn Airport in London to North Cumbria. It was a usual gloomy cold morning of England; rain was drizzling on my ear high hat as I walked towards my home. Strange silence surrounded the house. I knocked on the door to see my mum’s sad face. I stepped into the living room to the strong smell of burning coal from the fire place. Removed my cloak and placed my hat on a hanger. I went into the guest room to see my paralyzed cousin. He lied on the bed motionless & cold. “It has been 2 days now Jeff, we are trying to feed him liquid and soluble but his body is rejecting lately” my aunt spoke. I kept my calm strong and tried to ask few questions. “Aunt Marge, how did this happen, did you or anyone notice anything unusual. I can see there is no epidemic nearby. So, evidently this is not any wide spread disease.” Mum and aunt Marge asked me to take a seat & mum said “I will make you a cup of tea while you listen to Marge”. Aunt Marge sat beside Henry’s cold feet & spoke softly “He is the strongest man I have ever seen; well for me he is still a boy – brave, dedicated & smart. He served the Royal army with his full honor & fought against the Germans at the France strong hold. But he was under Royal army protection even after the war got over. I never understood why though. He came back home in summer 1945. He has been very normal physically & mentally; until recent events.” Mum came back with three cups of tea. Aunt Marge kept the cup on a table nearby and continued “Strangely, Henry started speaking in the sleep lately. Well, it was not something that we can overlook.” I cleared my throat & asked “Aunt, everyone speaks in the sleep when they enter a phase which scientifically called REM phase. Did you hear anything in particular?” She replied “Yes, he speaks in German!”

There was a momentary silence in the room. “So, did he learn German when he was serving the Royal army in France border?” Aunt replied “He didn’t even understand German when he was awake. I spoke to him about this many times. He always replied – Mum I have no idea how I can speak a language if I can’t understand it. We have also noted another peculiar but strange happening with him. From past one month he has been vomiting a lot even though he was in perfectly good health. That might sound quite common but we have noted he only vomits whenever there is a lighting strike close to our house. I dunno, but how can a human body react to thunder & lightning?” My mind rushed back to Harvard in Nano-second. I started thinking about “Lightings are nothing but discharge of large amount of energy stored in charged particles and ions in clouds. How can they interact with human brain? But Aunt Marge spoke about Henry only reacted to lightening that stroke near the house. That means it has something to do with ionization of air. Human brain generates minor electrical charge while passing information across neurons. May be somehow his brain interacted with the ionized air & that has completely shut down his brain neurons. Hmm, sounds reasonable. The only way to stop the ionization of air is to seal this room with lead or aluminum foils” Then I spoke out loud “Okay, Aunt Marge I have understood what has happened. We have to seal this room with aluminum foil.” Mum & Aunt Marge were thoroughly confused. Mum spoke “I you say so, we have aluminum rolls in the store house, we can use those. “Yes. Let’s do it right away”.

It took us three hours to seal the room properly. I told Aunt Marge “Nothing to worry, just keep feeding him. Now that lighting strikes won’t affect his brain, there is a hope to bring him back. It was around 7pm and dusk was upon North Cumbria. My father had just come back home from his cotton mill factory. He was happy to see me but also sad to see Henry lying motionless on the bed. “I presume it must be your idea to seal the room, eh Jeff, hope this works!” We had our supper around 8pm and I went outside to sit on the porch. Few minutes past, Dad came out with 2 pints of beer in his hand & spoke sitting next to me “It’s really terrible what happened with Henry. Poor Marge, since Roald was killed in the first Great War, Henry was her world. It’s good that she decided to stay with us. Atleast she has some company in this tough time.” I took a large gulp of beer & spoke “I dunno if it’s strange or Henry is highly unlucky to be in this situation.” “Yes, I would say it’s rather unlucky, being a captive in a war changes you” Dad said. “Henry was captured by Germans in the war? Did Aunt Marge know about it?” I spoke with a surprised accent. “No. She doesn’t even need to know. Henry asked me not to bother her with this information. Anyways, he was only captive for 3 weeks. Royal army could able to retrieve Henry & 4 other privateers safely. Henry told me, he remembers to be conscious only for a week. He has no recollections of other 2 weeks. Strange!”

“Indeed, Strange” I exhaled & chugged my beer pint to finish. Weather outside was changing – Dark cloud covered the sky & it started raining. I hoped my aluminum foil solution to work. While I & dad were on 3rd pint of beer, we witnessed a strange event. A large patch of dark cloud was missing revealing stars beyond the sky. We were awestruck. I have never seen this phenomenon before. Suddenly there was a major lightning strike next to our house. I ran inside to check on Henry. Aunt Marge was already there holding his hand & speechless. “Aunt Marge! Is he okay?” She didn’t reply. I checked his breath. “No. No. No.” Henry had stopped breathing. Henry was dead.

I couldn’t see Aunt Marge crying anymore. I was angry on myself for being so helpless. We arranged a funeral within 2 days. We let the Holy Father & church mates do their final rituals. Before the burial, I asked my father “Can we weigh his body before the burial?” He was surprised at my strange question. I asked him again “How did he weigh when he was alive”. He replied “178 pounds”. The next day, Dad called few of his cotton mill workers to send a weighing machine. We weighed Henry’s body. I was stopped breathing for a while as I stared at the dial – 175 pounds. Dad snapped me out and asked “Jeff, what’s the matter?” I spoke in a choked voice “His brain is missing, vanished, evaporated – 3 pounds missing.” “What?” Dad replied. “How is it possible?” “We have to get X-ray done on him. We have no other choice”. I kept mum & Aunt Marge out of all this. Few hours before the burial, we took henry’s body to nearby hospital & did an x-ray scan. “As suspected, his brain is missing” I spoke calmly & continued “Lets finish off with the burial proceedings. I need to do some more research on this” We finished the burial on 18th day of October. My brain was a cave of an angry tiger – so many questions & no answers. I packed my bag, hugged Aunt Marge, kissed mum & whispered into dad’s ear “I will solve this at any cost. You stay in your wits & take care of aunt & mum”. I took the late night aircraft to Harvard. I sat in the aircraft seat staring at the passing dark clouds and questioned myself “He was captured by Germans & don’t recall 2 weeks. What happened there? Why there was a strange opening in the clouds that day – anything to do with dark matter? Why was he reacting to lightening – Was his brain neurons interacting with surge of energy? How can his brain go missing without any physical damage – has something happened at sub-atomic quantum level? I am sure only my equations can solve this mystery”

“Every object and matter in this universe dents the fabric of space and time. Other relatively smaller matter captured by this dent revolves around master object. Sometimes goes by the name of attraction; sometimes by the name of love?” – Theory of Relativity

“Scientifically, brain is the most complicated creation. Brain can naturally understand the basic rules of universe – gravity, attraction & time. What is the effect of brain on the fabric of space and time, still needs to be discovered” – Neuroscience

It all started the other night when I was watching Tom Hanks famous series “From the Earth to the Moon”. In the NASA committee meeting prior to Apollo 7 launch one sentence caught my mind “Why are we talking about 7 days and that too in earth hours. You people have no idea how fast time goes in space”.While time being a relative term for ‘unfolding of events’ or I can say a local benchmark for local events. But things get trickier when dealing with different time scenarios.

To approach this question in a systematic manner I will start with human brain and its interaction with time and gravity. Gravity is the entity that plays with time (or influencing events to unfold) very dearly. Few points to consider when dealing with time dilation. Firstly, human brain, from the birth get acclimatized with basic earth characteristics – earth gravity & earth time. While gravity influences time, it will be much easier to explain that way. Secondly, the velocity of the body when looked from an observer point of view.

Now lets talk about gravity influencing time. As I mentioned before time is a relative term to indicate unfolding of an event. For example, there is an event of walking on a 100 meter ramp inclined at 45 degrees. And Mr. X takes 10 mins (Earth time) to walk up the ramp when placed in Earth scenario (Gravity pulls Mr X down as he struggles to walk up the ramp). If the ramp is placed in space (out of Earth’s gravitational influence Mr. X will take 1 min (Earth time) to walk up, perhaps he can jump or slide across the ramp, since Mr. X is free from gravitational pull. So, ‘Unfolding of events’ happens much faster when gravity is less there by giving an illusion of “Time goes faster in space”.

Q: If time goes faster in space, will human beings die early when in space?

A: Yes, when recording in Earth time & observing from Earth. As I explained before, Human brain has major role to play when we talk about time. When living an entire lifetime in space, human brain will acclimatize with the time setting & zero gravity (or different gravity value). Finally, in local space time setting, human being will live for 80 years achieving same set of goals. BUT, when looking from earth that 80 years will look like 10 earth years. So, Mr X when comes back to earth after 10 earth years will be 80 earth years old & have achieved (E.g building a Pyramid) a lot as compared with normal earth people.

Same effect of time dilation was backed by Einstein’s general relativity theory.

I still don’t have any answers to questions like: How human brain understands gravity? How human brain changes its activity when put in different gravity scenarios? Is my understanding of time illusion is correct?

It will be much appreciated if anyone can share his/her view on this matter. Gravity has successfully spoiled my day, haha!

“I am not sure how to put this post across to people with framed mind. I am not sure how to convince people that we live in a fragile little speck. I am not sure how to influence extremists with communal harmony or reach out to religious heads and show them the reality of universe. But deep inside the faith of being the only intelligent creation must remain strong.”

The pale blue dot, that we live in must not tear apart on its own footprint. The pale blue dot that we call the only home, the oasis that we ever know, the realm that we thrive to dominate, the cocoon with no replacement, must be preserved because beyond this ‘pale blue dot’ we have nowhere else to go. As I read through the quotes of Carl Sagan carefully, I pose few questions to myself and every citizen of this blue marble:

” All the rage, the anger, the hatred, the fight for superiority, the fight for dominance, the clannish thoughts, the extremist thoughts; all the fame, the power, the class, the poverty – will these all help us find another home when the ‘pale blue dot’ exists no more?”

The pale blue dot– This is where we make our stand

Look again at that dot!

That’s here. That’s home. That’s us,

On it everyone you love, everyone you know,

everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions,

ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager,

every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization,

every king and peasant, every young couple in love,

every mother and father, hopeful child,

inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals,

every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,”

every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants

of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner,

how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another,

how fervent their hatreds

Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors

in glory and triumph,

they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturing, our imagined self-importance,

the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe,

are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.

In our obscurity, in all this vastness,

there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life.

There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate.

Visit, yes. Settle, not yet.

Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.

There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.

To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another,

and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known